Hi, all.

We've grown considerably since rebuilding the sub (see https://lemmy.ml/post/2262830). Active monthly users 150 -> 380. 3.5k -> 5.42k subs. It seems to be growing organically now, and the higher we go, the more people will stumble across it. There is always a need to get away from Google, and hopefully our community can help people with this.

If you'd like to join us to help moderate so we have folk in place as we need them, that would be awesome.

If you are interested. Please send a message about why you think you'd be good for the role, and also an example post/comment in this community previously.

Thanks,

CrypticCoffee

Here I will pin a list of recommendations for software. Getting started can be daunting, and it'd be great to pull that information together here for newcomers so they can take practical steps to degoogle their lives.

Disclaimer: These are recommendations by regulars here and on privacy forums. Use at own risk. We cannot due diligence on these, so if people do have issue with items in the list, please create a post and raise your concerns.

Recommendations

Browser -

• Firefox (Strongly recommend in light of WEI and Google's plan that could potentially restrict access to websites)
• Librewolf
• Brave (Not recommended, due to Google's WEI changes. Using chromium is a bad idea. I left this in case you really must)

Search

• Duck Duck Go
• Brave

Email

• Proton mail
• Tutanota

Cloud storage

• Proton mail

Productivity Suite (Alternative to google docs)

• Libre office (Maybe not cloud based)
• Only office (for MS doc compatibility)

Degoogled Android phones

Phone OS - https://lemm.ee/post/663113

• GrapheneOS

• LineageOS (wihh or without MicroG)

• /e/OS

Android app store -

• F-droid

Messaging

• Signal

• Element (Matrix)

Maps - https://lemmy.ml/post/2211048

• Organic Maps

• OsmAnd+

SMS - https://lemmy.ml/post/2256135

Organisation

Task lists - https://lemmy.ml/post/2249613

Calendar - https://lemm.ee/post/704703

• Fossify Calendar - https://github.com/FossifyOrg/Calendar

Discussion

These items are ones either recommended multiple times or seem to have some form of consensus on them being good and privacy focussed. I will link discussion topics so people can see the logic and reasoning behind recommendation. If you are not happy with anything here, please discuss here: https://lemmy.ml/post/2262409

If you would like another item in this, please create a post discussion and we can pull it in and link to it.

Like instead of google docs or google sheets use this?

• /e/OS V2 is a de-Googled Android operating system with Android Auto support, UI enhancements, and privacy improvements.
• The update includes features like a new launcher app, App Lounge app store with privacy ratings, and a "wall of shame" for tracking apps.
• Based on LineageOS 20, /e/OS 2.0 offers bug fixes, security updates, and performance enhancements, along with device-specific improvements.

I've found helpful guides for de-googling here, but I wasn't able to find any for limiting the personal data that is shared with Google before making the switch to other services.

I'd greatly appreciate if anyone could link me to existing guidance or offer guidance here. Some questions I have:

• If you've de-googled, were you able to clear out any of your data from wherever Google captures it?
• Does Google allow you to clear out data upon account deactivation?
• What is the extent of control we have (if any) over our personal data once Google has captured it? Once Google has sold it elsewhere?

Hey there, I'm looking for an alternative to Google pay that'll allow me to use NFC payments etc. Thoughts?

I don't have a Google account, nor am I interested in opening one.

E: Just to clarify, the payment part would be convenient, more annoying is how I don't get to use a single place for my subway/gym/ticketmaster passes.

It seems that the motherboard is dead, and that it's a common issue with the 5a and I "should've known better," despite it being impossible to find decent information on phones these days.

I got it because it was the last Pixel with a headphone jack, and because it had good official LineageOS support. But I compromised: giving up the SD slot was tough for me, and now that I've been burned by not having one (I typically auto-backup my Signal history and other things to the SD card) I don't want to get another phone without it.

But the landscape seems bleak. The vast majority of phones that are officially supported by LineageOS are Pixels. It's impossible to find easy information on which phones have non-official LOS ROMs. Search results are useless these days, and I also keep running into an issue where after researching a phone for half an hour I discover that it has some arcane process to unlock the bootloader that doesn't always work, and the forum posters imply that the purchasers "should've known better." I'm just at my wit's end.

If anyone can suggest something that has decent deGoogled ROM support with the following features, I'd be very grateful:

• OLED screen (a must-have for my photosensitivity)
• SD card slot
• I am willing to give up the headphone jack in order to expand my options

I am in need of a separate degoogled phone for some things that require high level of privacy (nothing illegal).

I have 2 phones that I can use. One of them is my business phone (it has my business number, apps, data and that sort of stuff) which is now running an OS with all the Google spyware because it's necessary for the apps to work. I can reinstall everything on the second phone and use the first one as the secure device since it supports everything I need. The problem is that it has some issues on vanilla ROMs that I don't really want to deal with and the reinstalling will take a lot of time.

The issue with the second phone is that it is rocking an old MTK chip and rooting instructions are let's say a bit beyond my ability to understand. I still want to use it without Google if possible though. So can I degoogle its stock ROM with ADB or something? And is it worth trying or there will still be some vulnerabilities?

EDIT: to clear some possible misunderstandings, the reason of why I need a separate secure phone is that I am forced to use a very invasive proprietary app that I'd prefer just keeping on a separate device instead of trying to limit its spyware abilities with firewalls and that kind of stuff. I don't trust the last solution much. Also I can't use it in a VM because I need it to always be accessible wherever I am and yk carrying a PC is not an option

I have 5 of the older generation google home speakers that i dont use because google assistant got dumber and dumber so that in the end it was just easier to get up and turn off the light instead of having google do it.

It seems like a waste though to throw them away. Could I re purpose them in any way?

I really want to try Filen as my main cloud provider but my main brake point is that the app doesn't automatically upload my images in the background. I'm not sure if this is because I'm on the free plan or because of my device, has anyone had better luck with the automatic image upload in the background?

Sounds like trouble for Newpipe, Sponsorblock, etc...

Hi y'all, in my quest to de-goog my life, I've switched from using google's calendar to a new service from a company I trust more. (Someday I will self-host but not today)

In any case, I am looking for a way to have any new invitations which are sent to my google account be auto-forwarded to my new calendar. I was able to set up something similar for my gmail, but is there a way to do with with calendar events? I've searched around and not found anything yet.

Thanks for any ideas.

I've thinking about ditching my Protonmail email address with Posteo since I need IMAP support (because I hate using the Protonmail app) and honestly paying for Proton Mail Plus didn't worth the money because they are pushing me to buy the Protonmail Unlimited but I don't need all those capabilities nor would I use them and the best alternative I've found is Posteo and honestly I like it, I even got CalDAV support which I didn't have in Protonmail, but personally I don't know anybody who use Posteo, so I post this here.

invidious redirect of the yt video

One thing is being aware of bad actors on the internet, in that case IOS could be an option, other thing is being aware of the mass surveillance and manipulation across the digital space, and that's the thing we're more worried about in communities like this, in such case, IOS is no better than shooting yourself (i understand the point of the difficulties of having a custom rom, but that's just a skill issue).

You can't become privacy conscious without sacrificing something, some friend will go away calling you a paranoid, somo products you own will become garbage, that's just normal here.

Are there any good apps to use as a replacement for google maps? It's the only google service I'm still using.

Hey, I'm wondering what everyone uses for searching. I personally use a combination of these sites:

• mwmbl.org
• https://search.marginalia.nu/
• https://greppr.org/
• https://wiby.me/

For main driving I use duckduckgo

This post is going to be a bit personal (and maybe a little bit out of context, it's not just Google software I want to remove) but I'm tired of not knowing what to do about it. I want and have wanted to get rid of a bunch of proprietary software in my life, including but not limited to Google's software, for quite a while now, and I even got a Pixel 7A with hopes of installing GrapheneOS. But there are a few problems. First, my parents are understandably concerned and need me to use Google Maps' location sharing whenever I go to school. All my classmates use Instagram and we have that as our only messaging platform. I currently use DFInstagram, but I feel that it is not free from spyware. Finally, I also own a DJI Mini 3 Pro, and the associated DJI Fly app just refuses to work under GrapheneOS (I tested). Is there anything I can do to replace or limit the access of these aforementioned proprietary apps?

I've thinking about purchasing Proton Mail Plus only and just only to have IMAP support, but I've looked all the features that the Proton Unlimited Plan have, and honestly I believe it's worth, but I hate having all the eggs in the same basket.

The features I believe worth the most are the 500GB storage, IMAP support, all the VPN servers with P2P and unlimited SimpleLogin aliases, but when I ask if it is worth the price I mean, the majority of those features I can have them having individually with others services and even at lower price.

@degoogle I believe you should be speaking about Sapio so that many people contribute to its community driven database. Just saying (:

https://github.com/jonathanklee/Sapio

I haven't been able to update my cellphone anonymously with Aurora since January. Every time I try, Aurora errors out with "Oops, you are rate limited".

This isn't the first time Google plays at making non-normies' lives difficult. So I tried the usual tricks, updated Aurora, tried the nightly build, waited, tried again... for months - to no avail: Google just won't play ball this time.

Last week, Signal stopped working and demanded to be updated. Fortunately, Signal offers the APK as a normal download without having to get it from the hateful Google Play store.

Today, my home banking identificator app did the same thing and stopped working. I needed to make a payment right now, and I had no way to update the app: "Oops, you are rate limited". And my bank sure doesn't offer the APK outside of anything but the goddamn Google Play store.

So I relented and created a Google account. Which of course entailed giving Google a phone number. I sure didn't give them mine, so I phoned a friend abroad who doesn't care to ask him to receive the verification SMS on his phone and read out the code to me. Which worked long enough to set up 2FA and do away with phone numbers altogether. And finally, after an hour of fucking around, annoying other people and compromising their phone number, I could update my banking app and make my payment at last.

All that because Google has decided they want to control my phone.

Fuck Google.

Seriously, how they are allowed to hold the Android world hostage like this without getting their monopolistic ass Sherman'ed AT&T-style, I'll never know. It's long overdue.

Cannot find it nowhere. It is almost fully De-Googled and fossyfied but this Huawei-Honor-Android 13 is absolutely confusing

as title says, Honor 90 ROM anyone?

I have to have WhatsApp installed on one of my phones for work purposes. It's not possible to ask my work to give me a phone (I'm on zero-hours contract). I do have two phones - one DeGoogled pixel running CalyxOS and one iPhone XS. The iPhone I use for banking apps and basically anything that ties directly to me. Apple Pay and so on. Then I use the DeGoogled phone for everything else - most communications done over Signal, taking photos etc. This is my daily driver.

My question is this - is there any way to make WhatsApp as private as possible? I'm fine knowing WhatsApp reads all my messages etc (not really fine per se, but what choice do I have) but what I really don't want is telemetry. So which phone should I install it on? The private one to limit telemetry, or the regular phone to stop any telemetry from my private phone being read? Or is there some way I can remotely host an instance of WhatsApp or something?

The technical mechanism:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.devicelock

update --- To be clear, I am not the OP who experienced this problem. I just linked them from here.

cross-posted from: https://infosec.pub/post/9936059

> I would like to collect the scenarios in which people are forced to enter Google’s #walledGarden (that is, to establish and/or maintain an account). > > If someone needs a Google service to access something essential like healthcare or education, that’s what I want to hear about. To inspire a list of things that are “essential” I had a look at human rights law to derive this list: > > * right to life > * healthcare > * freedom of expression > * freedom of assembly and of association > * right to education > * right to engage in work and access to placement services > * fair and just working conditions > * social security and social assistance > * consumer protection > * right to vote > * right to petition > * right of access to (government) documents > * right to a nationality (passport acquisition) > * right of equal access to public service in his country > > Below is what I have encountered personally, which serves as an example of the kind of experiences I want to hear about: > > * Google’s Playstore is a gate-keeper to most Android apps in the world and this includes relatively essential apps, such as: > * emergency apps (e.g. that dial 112 in Europe or 911 in the US) > * banking apps > * apps for public services (e.g. public parking) > * others? > * (education) Google docs is used by students in public schools, by force to some extent. Thus gdocs sometimes cannot be escaped in pursuit of education. When groups of students collaborate, sometimes the study groups impose use of gdocs. Some secondary school teachers impose the use of Google accounts for classroom projects. > * (education) A public university’s wi-fi network involved a captive portal and the only way to gain access was to supply credentials for a Google or Facebook account. > > I’ve noticed that when creating an account for a public service I often have the option to supply credentials for Google or Facebook to bypass the verification process. In all cases of this kind of registration shortcut being used for public service, there was an alternative Google-free way to open the account. But in the private sector, I’ve seen this style of registration that absolutely required a proxy login via some shitty walled garden (like the university wi-fi). So I wonder if there are any situations where a government (anywhere in the world) requires a Google account in order to get service. >

Since last updates Cromite begin to have some things for me. Every time I open the app, there's a new tab for me. Every time...any way to avoid this?

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/16224989

> What OS can I install on a Samsung GT-I8730? > > Hi everyone! > > I have to use an iPhone for work but I have an old Samsung GT-I8730 lying around. > > It’s a really old phone but it seems to work well on its base Android OS, so I would want to experiment a bit with it. > > I have experience with Linux distributions on my computers, but I’ve never installed an alternative OS. That’s why I’m looking for advices on what I could install on such an old piece of hardware. > > I’ve always been interested in /e/os as I think it would still allow me to use my (swiss) banking apps, but I’d be interested in any distribution which might also make it possible. > > If no OS would make such a thing possible, I would just want to know what I could install on this device to experience a bit. > > Thanks in advance for your help!

WILL BE UPDATE OFTEN Last update : 1/05/24

THE GUIDE FOR DE-GOOGLED APPS

(🏆 = just the best app ; ❤️ = a more than excellent app)

REMEMBER : Do not install every apps you find, for your security and privacy only install needed apps.

ANDROID

1- Phone and messaging

Phone --> Fossify Phone 🏆

Messages --> Quik SMS 🏆

Contacts --> Fossify contacts 🏆

Whatsapp --> Molly (Signal fork) ❤️ Briar (For advanced users, maximum privacy concerns)

2- Networking

Chrome (browser) --> Cromite ❤️ (must be configured) Mull (slower but not chromium-based, must be configured)

Discord --> Element (matrix.org client)

Reddit --> Jerboa (a Lemmy client)

3- Multimedia

YouTube --> Libretube 🏆

Spotify --> RiMusic 🏆

Google podcasts (podcasts) --> Antenna Pod ❤️

Gallery --> Fossify Galley ❤️ (Basic app) Aves ❤️ (Advanced gallery)

4- Tools

QrScanner --> Binary eye 🏆

Gboard --> HeliBoard ❤️ (OpenBoard fork)

IME keyboard --> Sayboard

Local sharing --> LocalSend ❤️

Google authenticator (2FA) --> Aegis ❤️

Lastpass (password manager) --> Bitwarden 🏆 (Self-hosted) KeePassDX 🏆 (local storage)

Gcam --> Open camera

5- Others

Clock --> Clock You

Google calendar --> Etar ❤️

PDF viewer --> MJ PDF

Office --> LibreOffice Viewer ❤️ (Only for reading)

LINUX

For more convenience, you can download your apps using the command line and flatpak (Flathub.org)

1- OS

Some Linux distributions recommendations :

• Linux Mint and Pop OS (for all levels)
• Arch (mainly for gaming but you can use it as working OS)
• Debian (for productivity (greatest compatibility) )

For most basic users I recommend using Gnome desktop environment

2- Softwares

Browser --> Firefox 🏆 (It's recommended to tweaks and the settings and use custom user.js (Explanations about user.js)) Librewolf ❤️ (For an out-of-the-box great experience)

Office --> The LibreOffice Suite ❤️

File sharing --> Local Send ❤️

YouTube --> FreeTube

Adobe Illustrator --> Inkscape

Lemmy --> Photon

Matrix --> Element

That's all, hope you enjoy, do not hesitate to save the post for future updates and comment your recommendations below ⬇️⬇️

I set up a Raspberry Pi 3 with AdguardHome for a friend of mine, and told him to disconnect everything at home and try to watch anything on his phone, being the only device using his home's internet.

He just sent me this, and now he's ready to #degoogle 🤣🤣🤣

He says there were hundreds in less than 5 minutes.

Hi guys! I'm in 4.4.2 version updated through obtainium, and now in app don't have any app, nor even apps to update

In an age of LLMs, is it time to reconsider human-edited web directories?

Back in the early-to-mid '90s, one of the main ways of finding anything on the web was to browse through a web directory.

These directories generally had a list of categories on their front page. News/Sport/Entertainment/Arts/Technology/Fashion/etc.

Each of those categories had subcategories, and sub-subcategories that you clicked through until you got to a list of websites. These lists were maintained by actual humans.

Typically, these directories also had a limited web search that would crawl through the pages of websites listed in the directory.

Lycos, Excite, and of course Yahoo all offered web directories of this sort.

(EDIT: I initially also mentioned AltaVista. It did offer a web directory by the late '90s, but this was something it tacked on much later.)

By the late '90s, the standard narrative goes, the web got too big to index websites manually.

Google promised the world its algorithms would weed out the spam automatically.

And for a time, it worked.

But then SEO and SEM became a multi-billion-dollar industry. The spambots proliferated. Google itself began promoting its own content and advertisers above search results.

And now with LLMs, the industrial-scale spamming of the web is likely to grow exponentially.

My question is, if a lot of the web is turning to crap, do we even want to search the entire web anymore?

Do we really want to search every single website on the web?

Or just those that aren't filled with LLM-generated SEO spam?

Or just those that don't feature 200 tracking scripts, and passive-aggressive privacy warnings, and paywalls, and popovers, and newsletters, and increasingly obnoxious banner ads, and dark patterns to prevent you cancelling your "free trial" subscription?

At some point, does it become more desirable to go back to search engines that only crawl pages on human-curated lists of trustworthy, quality websites?

And is it time to begin considering what a modern version of those early web directories might look like?

@degoogle #tech #google #web #internet #LLM #LLMs #enshittification #technology #search #SearchEngines #SEO #SEM

Just downloaded and it seems interesting. Have their own webview?

Hello! I'm a cromite user, and I come here to ask this question. Why if I increase the letter size from accessibility settings, it won't work? I'm on android 8. In other browsers like fennec or iodé works...

Google regularly launches updates to its algorithm to continuously improve search results quality. Think of these updates as a refresh of the system where rankings change: some websites see an improvement while others see a decline.

We know that at the end of the day, Google will reward us if our readers find our articles useful.

Or that’s what we thought.

You might have noticed that no matter what you google, there’s always a selection of the same publishers showing up at the top of the results.

Answer for future readers: Just download Quik which is a fork of QKSMS, still being maintained at the time of writing. Quik contains all the premium features of QKSMS+ but does not have a paywall and is free. The original QKSMS has been abandoned by it's dev (also at the time of writing) and the last major version released 3 yrs ago.

QKSMS is an SMS messaging app for Android which is open-source. There is also a paid upgrade called QKSMS+. I already wanted to buy it to support the devs anyway, but I now have a good reason to buy it. I need the premium version's ability to make backups of all my message history and export them to a different phone. However, when I went to purchase it from within the app; there only seems to be an option to purchase from the Google Play Store. The only places to get the app at all as far as I'm aware, is from either Google Play, F-Droid, or the Github. I personally got it from F-Droid, but there doesn't seem to be an option to purchase QKSMS+ from it... I'm pretty sure F-Droid doesn't have any purchases in it anyway.

So does anyone know how I purchase QKSMS+ without paying through Google? If the + versions source-code is not open, I can probably get it that way. But I don't know how to compile the code manually on my phone and would rather downloading it from the source be a last resort.

I've been looking for bookmark apps for android, and don't have any luck. Any recommendation?

I used Avenza Maps in the past for offline navigation at various state parks. The park service provides maps and the app will let you navigate the trails. It's been a long time since I used it and I now have a new phone on which I never installed the Google Play services. The app is complaining that "check that Google play is enabled. .." and then quits.

All the sites I've searched show you how to install or enable Google play (which I don't want). I'm pretty sure that it's needed because the app allows for in app purchases, which i don't need. I don't think I rooted this phone. Are there any workarounds or shim/simulation apps that would allow the app to work without installing privacy violating Google services?